


A Sentinel's Kitchen Nightmare

by amosanguis



Category: Chef RPF, Hell's Kitchen (US TV) RPF, Kitchen Nightmares RPF, MasterChef (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Character Study, Gen, Past Domestic Violence, Sentinel Gordon Ramsay, Sentinel Senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 20:48:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18746827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Gordon pulls the lobster from the tank and he doesn’t even have to sniff it to know that the poor thing is days dead. (He does it any way, counts it down to the minute just how long the lobster’s been gone, just to prove a point to the ornery head chef.)





	A Sentinel's Kitchen Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> Gordon Ramsay is a real life Sentinel and no one can convince me otherwise.
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with the Sentinel 'verse: Sentinels have superhuman senses (taste, touch, smell, etc.); there's also typically Guides to help ground them and totem animals - neither of which are included in this fic.
> 
> Has only been given a cursory edit, so please forgive any mistakes.

-z-

 

Gordon pulls the lobster from the tank and he doesn’t even have to sniff it to know that the poor thing is days dead.

(He does it any way, counts it down to the minute just how long the lobster’s been gone, just to prove a point to the ornery head chef.)

 

-

 

Gordon Ramsay’s enhanced Sentinel senses were what helped to catapult him to the top.

They were also what made those first days helping a failing restaurant particularly hellish – he’d learned quickly to keep his senses of taste and smell dialed down. Like. _Way down_. But even at his most basic, his senses were still sometimes too acute and he’d find himself rushing for the nearest bin.

 

-

 

Where many Sentinels dialed their senses like a volume control knob – thinking in numbers from zero to ten – Gordon dialed his senses in far more minute gradients, picturing the flame from a gas five-burner stovetop.

 

-

 

Whenever feasible, just before walking into a freezer, he closes his eyes and pictures himself standing before his five-burner oven – then he reaches for the dial labeled _smell_ and, with a quick flick of his wrist, shuts that little flame completely off.

But sometimes he’ll forget and then he’s assaulted with the scent of mold and rotting meat and decaying veg.

The worst is when he can quickly tell the _type of mold_ growing and just how far back and how far deep into the freezer and its mechanizations it is; can tell that it’s not just any meat rotting, but it’s chicken and it’d gone green last month and it’s sitting atop festering racks of lamb; and, underlying _all of that_ , is the unique individual scents of spoiled lettuce and carrots and apples and peppers turning to sludge.

And people wonder why he cusses like he does.

(Yeah, some of it is played up for the cameras, but nothing gets him riled quicker than senseless _waste_ ).

 

-

 

Another thing that gets Gordon riled?

Sentinels who attempt to throw their weight around.

While Sentinels were fewer these days and thus offered more protections under the law, Gordon has little inclination to pander to them. He was the one who’d been invited here; he was the one whose help and expertise could make or break this restaurant and he doesn’t _have_ to stay and suffer through the (attempted) bullying – he wasn’t twelve-years-old any more, watching his dad, also a Sentinel, drink himself into a rage to be directed at his children or his own Guide, putting her in hospital more nights than not.

Gordon finds it better to use his words to do the lashing, than to use his fists. He tears people apart, yes, but then he carefully and methodically rebuilds them – makes them stronger, makes them _better_.

 

-

 

And when he leaves at the end of the week, he offers up a prayer that, this time, _this time_ , his lessons stick. Because far too often he hears about those he’s visited in the past have closed their doors for the last time and, every time, it hurts, leaves him wondering if there was anything more that he could have done.

(The answer to that is usually a resounding _no_. That some people were just beyond changing.)

 

-

 

Gordon moves on to _Hell’s Kitchen_ and _Masterchef_ and he teaches the many Sentinels he comes across how to truly utilize their senses for picking out the best ingredients, and then how to maximize the flavors without compromising any other component of the dish.

And though he enjoys the thrill of those competitions, the company and genius of child chefs was not to be overstated nor overlooked. He pours his heart and soul into them and watches as they flourish. He keeps tabs on all the children he comes across, picks the best and the brightest and grooms them into their becoming – each of them holding a special place in his heart.

He tries to believe that he loves them all equally, but those that come online as Sentinels or Guides later in life – he feels a particular connection with them. And he doesn’t take lightly his influence over this next generation of chefs.

It’s a responsibility he revels in and one he believes he’s got the ability to shoulder.

At least he knows that none of his mentored young will leave a dead lobster in a tank for three days, six hours, and forty-two minutes.

 

-z-

 

End.


End file.
